


Long and Steep is the Way

by Mussimm



Series: Works and Days [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 19:11:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7373989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mussimm/pseuds/Mussimm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven heavenly virtues post-canon ficlets. Brienne POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Patience

The first time a Wildling tried to steal Brienne she had been ready. Lady Sansa - _Princess_ Sansa - had warned her about them, all but begged her to take up in the guarded chambers with the rest of the women, but she had refused and she had been ready.

The simplest way into the room from the outer yard was through the window above her bed. As the man struggled through she had simply extended her legs, borne his weight on her feet and launched him headfirst into the stone floor. She took her cue from the Wildling women and didn't press her advantage. When he recovered he offered her a feral grin and staggered out through the door.

They always grinned. Regardless of her method of dispatch, they grinned. Tormund Giantsbane grinned widest of all during his three attempts.

It became almost a part of her nightly rituals. Wash her face, stoke the fire, change clothes, fight a Wildling. Had her days been more interesting she might have reconsidered Lady Sansa's offers.

She could anticipate their arrival just after sunset and a row of hot coals along her windowsill would ensure the attempt barely roused her from sleep. Her fire pokers and hooks saw new life, shattering bones and teeth.

Brienne crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin as she had on the road from Harrenhal, Ser Jaime's bedroll always a proper distance away. In twisted, snow-filled dreams she sometimes heard his voice as the one floating through her window in grunts and growls. How simple and envious a thing it must be for Wildling women to sort out their confused feelings. If he wanted her he would try to claim her, no Kingsguard, no permission from her father. In fantasy she would beat him just to make certain that he understood the situation, then soothe his wounds under the blankets.

She was drifting in the haze of near-sleep when she heard a familiar grunting noise, in a familiar voice. A pail of water sat by her bed, ice crystallising on the surface, ready to be poured from her window and ensure her night's sleep, but this called for something different.

Dreading the cold stone on the soles of her feet, she climbed from bed and pulled Oathkeeper from its scabbard. She took up position in the shadows at the foot of her bed and waited for that distinctive flash of orange hair.

Tormund Giantsbane took his time. The Seven only knew why he thought he could best her this time when he spent countless minutes heralding his arrival with noisy climbing. He clambered through the small window one limb at a time, no more elegant or tactical than he had ever been.

She waited as he tumbled onto the bed, unable to lad with any grace from the small window, then sprang to his feet, righting himself. Then she struck.

With the flat of the blade she first smacked him high on the calf, sending him to his knees, then his ribs, his ear, his gut. She put the weight of herself behind the blows, ensuring he would have blossoming bruises that he would feel for days or weeks to come. Oathkeeper did not leave enemies standing.

In the wake of her dizzying assault Tormund spat a mouthful of blood to the floor. He took more time than usual to recover, but surely enough looked up at her with a blood-stained grin. He took her in, the golden-hilted sword still raised, feet wide in stance.

His eyes fixed on the sword. "Is that how they woo in the south, then? Fancy gifts?"

She almost answered him, the word _yes_ springing to her lips an instant before she realised the implications of her answer. But _no_ would be a falsehood. She kept silent, her face grim., Oathkeeper still raised.

Tormund stumbled from her chambers, clutching his ribs. Brienne barred the door after him and sunk back into bed. As her mind drifted closer to sleep a tired smile found its way to her lips. _A fancy gift, and no man shall ever give me anything finer._

In the morning she found a direwolf pelt spread across her doorstep.


	2. Dilligence

_Don't leave me alone with him._

The tone in Princess Sansa's voice had struck a bolt of fear into Brienne's heart. Petyr Baelish was as close to Lord Paramount of the Vale as any man could hope to be, and he terrified the Princess.

Brienne knew that she shouldn't attempt to stand guard indefinitely. Sleeplessness would render her useless, or the pain in her feet, or the fatigue of carrying the weight of her armour. There were others who could guard and King Jon would surely execute the man if he did anything untoward. But whenever she returned from snatching a few hours sleep and a meal, Princess Sansa's face would light up with relief, so she did her best.

The nights were not so cold standing outside her lady's door to keep the watch. Winterfell's internal heat, drawn up from springs deep below the ground, was warmest near the royal quarters. Nonetheless it was uncomfortable, seeing Brienne shift her weight to ease the strain on her feet and legs.

In the quiet of night she heard the footsteps long before they reached her. Soft footsteps of doe-skin shoes that would be intolerably cold if the wearer were to step out of doors.

Petyr Baelish and his smug face rounded the corner into the corridor.

A flicker of something passed over his face on seeing her. Mayhaps he thought about pretending to visit King Jon, but decided the lie would be transparent.

"Do you not sleep, my lady?" he asked.

"Do you not, my lord?" Brienne replied, gently resting an armoured hand on Oathkeeper's pommel.

"I confess I found myself restless and hoped to find Lady Sansa in the same state. We trade tales of her mother some nights. She find them comforting."

_Does she?_ "The hour is late. _Princess_ Sansa sleeps."

Lord Baelish looked her up and down, a smile teasing at his lips. "Did your lion give you that sword?"

"Ser Jaime Lannister bestowed this sword on me. He swore an oath to Lady Catelyn."

"Cat made him swear to give you a sword?"

Brienne did not try to guess at his game. If he wanted her gone he would have to improve his tactics. Princess Sansa had bade her not to let this man in her presence alone and she would stand until she dropped if necessary. "Lord Baelish, I've never been to Kings Landing, but on Tarth a man visiting an unwed lady's chamber at this hour is not proper."

Baelish only smiled wider. "Oh, but Lady Brienne, why should anyone fear for the Princess's virtue with you as her chaperone? I know you will keep my conduct appropriate."

She looked into his eyes and found his smile momentarily contagious. This man, this tiny, up-jumped lordling thought to intimidate her. She stretched the stiff fingers of her right hand and wrapped them more firmly around Oathkeeper's hilt, waiting a moment to ensure the gesture was not lost on him. She raised herself to her full height and peered down at him.

"I will."


	3. Kindness

Ser Jaime's missive arrived on a clear day, the last sunshine Brienne felt she'd ever see.

King Jon read it aloud to the war council and despite their murmurs of outrage Brienne had to bite her tongue to keep herself from laughing. In her own mind she knelt before her lion and smothered him with her gratitude.

"Did the Kingslayer try to have you imprisoned in his camp?" King Jon demanded of her.

She kept her face straight. "Ser Jaime treated me with courtesy."

In her maidenly dreams of courtship, before Ronnet Connington had dashed them, she would never have imagined receiving such a message would warm her whole body. Only Ser Jaime could pen a note which would ask after her health without drawing the King's suspicious eye to their friendship.

As Princess Sansa went about her day Brienne followed, half-absent, composing a reply in her mind.

Did she run the same risk, would her note be read before the small council? Would she bring Cersei's wrath down upon his head?

 _I am well, Jaime, I am here, I am alive. Your honour is safe with me and I keep it close._ She wanted to write. From the moment she heard his note she wanted to gush all her feelings onto paper and send it to him to keep safe. _I miss you._

It was not possible. Such a note would be an embarrassment to him at the best, treason at the worst.

If only she were as clever with words as he. Any note from her would confirm to him that she was alive, but something clever might be able to send him some hint that she was glad he had made it back to Kings Landing, that he was well enough to have the liberty to write to her.

_Ser Jaime, whilst Princess Sansa is unavailable to write to you, you have my thanks for allowing me safe passage through..._

Did Cersei even know that he'd allowed her that safe passage? Again, treason was on the table. Or worse. It was a pit in her gut, what his twin might do if she ever found out about Oathkeeper, about Sansa, about those moments when it wasn't just a one-sided infatuation and he looked at her like she could restore him to wholeness.

"I can't believe he threatened to take your head," Sansa confided over their midday meal. "If we need to treat with them again, I'll convince Jon to send someone else."

"Our friendship might be the only reason he let a Stark supporter walk free," Brienne said, trying to sound disinterested. "If you send another, he may fulfil that promise."

"You trust him too far."

It wasn't until the late evening that she was able to take her leave, pleading need for sleep. She chose the men to take her place personally, men who had a good head for duty.

The maester was leaving the rookery for the night when she called in on him and asked him to delay his own sleep a few minutes. She needed to send a raven to Kings Landing, she said. It was important, she said.

Under the maester's tired eyes she had no chance to be witty, to lace her message with double meanings.

_If I see another agent of your traitorous rebellion in my camp, I'll send you back their head._

He had chosen those words so carefully. Her quill hovered above the paper. Just something, anything, she told herself. He just wanted to know that she was alive and hale and whole and still fighting.

A smile lit her up unbidden.

_Kingslayer,_

_If you want my head, you shall need to practise your swordsmanship._

_Brienne of Tarth._


	4. Chastity

The direwolf pelt lay on the table before them, spread out like the body of an enemy. 

Princess Sansa held a finger to her chin, studying it. She made to speak several times, each ending before a sound left her lips. Eventually she settled on propriety. "I've heard there are direwolves beyond the wall."

"That seems evident," Brienne said. 

It was beautiful. She could not deny it. Silky grey fur tipped in black, large enough to drape down to her hip. Even she would feel magnificent with it wrapped about her shoulders. 

"Do you like him?" Sans asked.

Brienne hesitated. "I..."

"You do!" Princess Sansa lit up in half-mocking joy. "Brienne of Tarth enamoured of a Wildling!"

"I am not enamoured of him," Brienne bit out.

"Then what? If you truly weren't interested you would have returned it by now."

It wasn't so simple as all that. Tormund was not her type of man, if she could be said to have a type. He spent his days before Winterfell raping and reaving, and unlike Jaime had no secret purpose or remorse. She could never bring herself to care for such a man.

Yet... There was some part of her that wished for his friendship. The part that had never had a man want her for anything more than her title. Tormund wouldn't know what to do with a title if he had one. He just desired her. To be desired was new and heady.

It could be the part of her that enjoyed sparring with him. He did not treat her to the smooth dance of the knights, he prepared her for battle, swept her feet out from under her, threw dirt in her eyes, used nails and teeth and bone to make her yield. The white walkers would not dance, they would brawl. 

Brienne ran a hand down the fur, the soft strands catching between her fingers. In one way, and one way only, he reminded her of Jaime. He flitted between flippant irreverence and terrible intensity. She could handle intensity, she could meet it. But the jocular moods that took him... she wanted to learn them. Learn not to blush, maybe even meet him jape for jape. Maybe she could learn not to keep a man at arms length with her coldness. 

If she was brave, if she was a Wildling woman, she could wear the pelt for a time. Learn the ways of its giver and give it back when she had taken what she needed.

Brienne jolted to her feet and gathered the pelt in her arms.

"I have to give this back."

She pretended not to see Princess Sansa's merry grin.


	5. Temperance

The servers placed cup after cup of wine in front of her. They may have thought that the colour or the vintage were not to her taste, but still she drank none.

King Jon's nameday gave them an excuse the celebrate. It  gave Princess Sansa an excuse to insist Brienne wear a gown instead of her armour. It gave them an excuse to let their guard down, and she didn't enjoy it.

Between the white walkers, the crown, Petyr Baelish and the uneasy alliances between the Northmen and the Wildlings, they had not the luxury of a relaxed guard. If Brienne was the only sober person in the Great Hall, she would be the one to enforce the peace whether they liked it or not.

"Lady Brienne."

She shot to her feet in the king's presence, then bowed. "Your grace."

"You'll dance with me."

It wasn't a request. She appreciated that he hadn't made it a question.

The floor was less dignified than the few Kings Landing gatherings she had attended, as filled with Wildlings attempting to grope each other as couples making their practised step. They made way for her and King Jon.

_I will have danced with two kings,_ she thought. _I could start a collection._

The dance was not so intimate as some of the southron waltzes, more about circling and bare touches of hands. Brienne was grateful. She was always the object of sport but these dances yielded little mockery, an unspoken agreement that they would do the steps as an excuse to talk privately.

"My sister trusts you with her life," King Jon said.

"I will give my life for hers, if necessary."

He did not speak for a time, stepping in and out, circling, maintaining their pretence. When finally he spoke, he held her gaze. "The crown may send a force north to take back this keep. You know who will be leading it."

She restrained herself from laughing. She had heard the name Kingslayer's Whore, she knew what they thought but always wondered how far they thought. They were right, she would sacrifice heavily for another draw from that well. But how could she? Did they think she might simply run out onto the battlefield and fling herself into his arms? That she would be welcomed in Kings Landing? That she had some future as Lady of the Rock?

She hadn't realised until he had spoken how parched she was and how far away the possibility that she would drink again. Fate had favoured them at Riverrun, it would not again.

"I swore an oath," she said to the king. "If any man names me an oathbreaker, he should do it with steel in hand."

King Jon smiled. "I was hoping you would say that, my lady."


	6. Humility

"You promised to serve her." Powdery snow coated King Jon just as it coated the battlements around him. The White Wolf had never been whiter.

"I vowed to protect her. I need to be near her to protect her."

"You went to Riverrun."

Brienne tried to school the frustration off her face. This was a king. "I failed to achieve anything at Riverrun and left her to further indebt herself to Littlefinger. I don't plan to make the same mistake twice."

"You left then to try to help us win her a home. Now I need you to help us keep it for her. I've never been south of Winterfell and there are still places to be secured. I won't rely on Littlefinger to guide us safely."

This wasn't proper. He shouldn't ask a sworn shield to abandon her charge. She thought about challenging him on it. There were others. His lords and their men knew the land, if only in parcels. Retracing her steps south would only be made slightly faster by her current knowledge. 

She had to be by Sansa's side. Nightmares of Ramsay Bolton plagued them both. She wouldn't rest easy a single night she wasn't with her lady. It was a fear bordering on paranoia, that something lurked in dark corners, or some plot was about to steal her away.

Brienne shifted uncomfortably. "I should be with Princess Sansa. I don't trust the Wildlings."

She had a purpose in Winterfell. Ser Jaime had charged her with it. Something felt rotten in her gut at what he might think if he knew she was playing ranger for King Jon. Or if she ever had to tell him that Sansa had been hurt whilst under her protection. 

He would mock her. He would be hurt that she had let his honour slip, so he would hurt her back. Would throw Renly and Catelyn and his missing hand in her face and she would deserve all of it. This was her duty and she would not fail again.

"Brienne, we have others. You're not the only one charged with protecting her."

Brienne scoffed. "Green boys and Wildlings, most of them."

"I wasn't talking about them, I was talking about me. Trust me to make sure she's safe in your absence." King Jon implored her with his eyes. It was a tense truth in Winterfell that she hadn't bent the knee to the King in the North. She was not his to command and he knew it. 

But he was Princess Sansa's brother and he loved her. Brienne could trust him with his sister and if Sansa ordered it, she would have to trust him with Ser Jaime's honour as well.

"I will ask Princess Sansa's leave to accompany you."


	7. Charity

The worst nights were when Princess Sansa woke with a scream on her lips.

Brienne would go into her chambers on thos nights and kneel by her bedside while the princess wept. She would remove her gloves and let the girl hold her hands, anchoring her in the present.

"I can't get him out of my head," Sansa cried. "Even when I'm awake sometimes I'm back with him. Not even the beating or... or any of it, just the way he'd smile at me."

"You're safe," Brienne said. "No one is going to hurt you while I live, I swear it. The rest will take time."

Sansa looked up at her, tracks of tears staining her face as red as her hair in the candlelight. "You've seen horrible things. You've been a captive."

"I have."

"Did they hurt you?"

Brienne knew what she was asking. Few believed that she was still a maid after Harrenhal, whether by Locke's hand or Jaime's. "No, my lady. Although they did throw me to a bear."

Sansa laughed through her tears and the nightmare was dispelled. "Is it true you fought it in a dress?"

"A pink dress. Bolton pink with a fur trim. It was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen." Brienne squeezed the girl's hands, hoping for another laugh.

Sansa didn't laugh but her smile was wide, if pained. "How did you survive? In your head?"

 _Jaime._ At first ensuring his survival had been enough to distract her, and later all she had to do was remember him launching himself over the railing of the bear pit, one handed, unarmed and filthy. Ready to fight a bear for her. It was easy to feel safe when a gallant knight saw to her protection.

She ought to speak that aloud, share that well of hope with her charge.

But her tongue stuck in her mouth. Those were her own memories and to speak them to another might change them. Sansa would say something cutting about Jaime, or convince her that he came back out of duty instead of friendship. Brienne had her own demons to survive and to risk tainting her only balm was too much.

She offered Sansa a sad smile. "It will come with time."

Sansa settled back into bed and Brienne left her to sleep, guilt tugging at her for keeping the panacea to herself.

Nobody was perfect.


End file.
